Creating spaces for black youth to discuss mental health

Last week, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health held a forum for young advocates to testify about the experiences of Black youth struggling with trauma, stress, and mental health. 18-year-old Mei-Ling Ho-Shing was one of the students who testified. 

My name is Mei-Ling Ho-Shing. I am eighteen-years-old and am from Coconut Creek, Florida. I survived the infamous, tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 

As traumatic as that mass shooting was, my struggles with mental health began long before — as did the struggles many other young people in my community. 

I used to think that kids who live in nice homes and attend good schools are not supposed to feel hopeless. I thought Black students like me were always supposed to be strong and overcome whatever we encountered the way our ancestors did.

I started seeing a therapist with my mother at 15 years old. I was a freshman in high school, and my mother took me out of extra-curricular activities because she wanted me to improve my grades, and thought I could do better academically if I didn’t participate in them. I was no longer in step, dance, or the multicultural show, even though I felt better around my peers. This isolation was a huge deal to me, but no one around me understood that. 

At 16, I used a knife to harm myself. I was dealing with family and relationship issues, and life felt overwhelming. I was gripped by an internal pain that I didn’t want to feel and resorted to self-harm. Even though I was still seeing a therapist, nobody knew the depth of emotional pain I was experiencing; I didn’t show any signs that I was suicidal or wanted to harm myself. 

After the Parkland mass shooting, I recognized that the services offered to me and my classmates didn’t help us deal with the trauma we had experienced. As a result of the shooting, I’m hypersensitive to crowds and loud sounds — they trigger panic attacks. Somehow, I had the presence of mind to seek out a trauma expert to get the help that I needed at the time, but now that I’m away at college, I don’t have the support I need it. The university therapist to whom I was assigned has no training in treating people who’ve experienced mass shootings; He doesn’t know what to do with me. 

There are other Black students like me — survivors of violence — waiting for the opportunity to open up. We want to get help so we can get better. 

For this reason and more, it’s important for lawmakers, health professionals, and youth advocates to join forces with groups like the National Black Justice Coalition (NBJC), the National CARES Mentoring Movement, and the Congressional Black Caucus Emergency Taskforce on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health. WEe also need these groups to visit our communities to have direct, effective, and intimate conversations with Black students about mental health care and the resources available. All of these groups need to make mental health care a priority because some of the people who need it most, including Black students and children of color, are not, and in some cases, cannot seeking out the life-saving mental health services they need. And on that point, to make this a reality, we also need mental health services to be more affordable and more culturally sensitive.

There’s also a shameful stigma within the Black community that attaches mental health issues to weakness. We need our community to know that seeking mental health care is not only acceptable but necessary. We need spaces where the people around us understand why we’re triggered because they have lived similar experiences. We need people on campuses who can come to students who need to talk. We need safe spaces on campus where we can just breathe: small-group therapy, meditation sessions, self-care groups, and clubs focused on strengthening the mental health of Black students. 

Young people in my generation are under so much pressure. Pressure to succeed. Peer pressure. Pressure to fit in. 

These pressures brought me to one of the lowest points of my life. I am still healing from that time. I will be healing for the rest of my life. Fortunately, my support system has grown. Some days are harder than others, but I am finally in a good place, making new friends at college, enjoying my classes, and helping others heal. 

Although I have a better outlook on mental health and suicide prevention, my activism has shown me that we need more persistence and creativity to engage young people. With more support from lawmakers and organizations like CARE and the NBJC, many more of my peers can take comfort in the fact that they’re not alone because more is being done to uplift them.